


Mud Will Nourish You

by snack_size



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, First Kiss, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Quentyn Lives
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-22
Updated: 2015-08-22
Packaged: 2018-04-16 13:27:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,359
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4626963
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/snack_size/pseuds/snack_size
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Quentyn survives his encounter with Viserion and Rhaegal, but is badly injured. Gerris comforts him in the aftermath as he, Quentyn, and Archibald attempt to determine what to do now that Meereen is blockaded and soon to be besieged. Comfort and first kisses ensue.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mud Will Nourish You

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Alley_Skywalker](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alley_Skywalker/gifts).



> I really enjoyed writing this - I always felt that Quentyn deserved a whole lot better than what he got in canon.

“Quentyn,” Gerris said. “We are going back to Dorne.”

 

Only one of Quentyn’s eyes opened at his words. The other was bruised shut, likely from when he had been pushed out of the way of Rhaegal’s flames.

 

It had to have been Archibald, Gerris thought - it had not been him. It should have been him, but he had been tricked by the other dragon as well, had just watched as fire erupted from the mouth of the hidden one.

 

It was like the dragons had hunted them. Gerris shuddered at the memory - of how they had coordinated their attack, of how they had known.

 

“Yes,” Quentyn murmured. He shifted, and groaned, no doubt aggravating the burns to his side. Gerris picked up a cup with more of the clear liquid that seemed to have a similar effect to the milk of the poppy.

 

No need to tell Quentyn about the siege to the city, the fleets outside waiting to break down their doors and punish the Mother of Dragons. No need to tell him they may never make it back to Dorne.

 

“Might be the Prince does have some dragon blood in him,” Ser Barristan said, “to do something so foolish. To live through something so foolish.”

 

Then Ser Barristan nodded off to the side as one of the women that Missandei trusted came in to put the cream and poultice to Quentyn’s burns. Gerris followed him. “You won’t be leaving Meereen any time soon,” he said. “The flux, the Yunkish, the fleet at the borders…”

 

“Yes, I am aware,” Gerris said, rubbing at the cloth over the stitches on his arm. Ser Barristan stared at him. “Are you proposing I fight in her defense?” Gerris asked, almost amused. “The girl who spurned him - for what, exactly? A husband who wanted nothing but to poison her?” He shook his head.

 

Ser Barristan sighed. “She is still very young.”

 

“And we are not?” Gerris asked, and then looked down. The groans of pain from the bedroom were sign enough of that. However, he felt that his point stood.

 

“Oh, indeed,” said Ser Barristan. “I can think of many follies from my youth...the Prince won’t be able to travel for some time.”

 

“You are still not making a compelling argument for why I should lend you my sword,” said Gerris.

 

“You would stay by his bedside while the city burns?” Ser Barristan asked.

 

Gerris turned and returned to Quentyn, preferring that to be his answer. He could feel Ser Barristan’s eyes on him - he knew what he was thinking. If only they had listened to the knight and gone back to Dorne, instead of this folly. This did not mean that they should listen to him now.

 

And Ser Barristan did not know that Gerris had tried to talk him out of it as well. Damn Martells, he thought. He had forgot how Quentyn could be as stubborn as the rest of his family. Unbowed, unbent, unbroken. Stubborn and impulsive.

 

“He will sleep, if he has taken the draught,” said one of the attendants as she finished changing his dressing.

 

“Good,” said Gerris.

 

 

* * *

 

“He won’t just want us to fight,” Archibald said, handing Gerris a glass of wine.

 

Gerris drank it eagerly, almost all of it, and nodded his head. “You think he will wish to use us to sway the Tattered Prince?”

 

“He needs all the help he can muster,” Archibald said. He looked out the window, where one could just make out the ships blockading the city in the distance.

 

“We are going back to Dorne,” said Gerris.

 

Archibald looked out the window for a long while. Gerris let him think - so many thought Archibald slow-witted, but he was more ponderous. “Without a marriage. Without dragons. Without anything Prince Doran sent Quentyn to get.”

 

“With his son,” Gerris replied.

 

“Ah,” said Archibald, and his lips almost turned to a smirk.

 

“He did all of that for Danaerys,” said Gerris. “If she had not-”

 

“He did it because it was what his father willed,” said Archibald. “She is beautiful, yes, but one does not fall that much in love in such a short time.”

 

Gerris felt his jaw set hard. “For Dorne, then,” he said. It was easier to fall in love with Dorne. “Which is why we will go home.”

 

“I will do as Prince Quentyn wishes,” Archibald said. There, definitely, was that almost smirk playing across his face. It made Gerris think of the first time he had fought him in the practice yards, how humiliating the defeat had been as Quentyn and the other boys looked on.

 

“So very loyal, Yronwood,” Gerris said, emphasizing his family’s name - they had no love lost for the Martells, after all.

 

 

* * *

 

“My father…” Quentyn murmured, and Gerris snapped to full waking. The late afternoon was so hot in Meereen, it was hard not to doze. He had thought he was back in his large bed in Dorne, the wind blowing in off the mountains to provide a little respite. There was no wind in Meereen, it seemed, as though all of the forces around the city were acting as a buttress to it.

 

“Yes?” Gerris asked.

 

“I was…he told me I had to…” Quentyn sighed, and moved to shift. Gerris put a hand to his uninjured arm and shook his head. Quentyn groaned just from the little movement he had made.

 

“We all feel duty to our fathers,” Gerris said - though since Quentyn had been burned, he was beginning to wonder why Doran had sent them. And how foolish Gerris had been, when Quentyn had approached him! Yes, let us go to Meereen, halfway ‘round the world, to court the last Targaryen. He was a knight who had never had anything approaching an adventure or a true battle, and he knew Quentyn felt the same way. “To our land.”

 

“And I failed…” Quentyn said. His face was crumpled, forlorn, and Gerris had seen that face many times before. He reached over, putting his hand to Quentyn’s arm.

 

“You did something very foolhardy, but...brave,” he said, finally, because it had been. “All for Dorne.”

 

“Yes,” Quentyn said. “And for…”

 

“You should not do anything for her,” Gerris said. “She is…” He tried to search for an appropriate word, for someone who could just disregard Quentyn - an emissary from the Martells, from Dorne. Did she not care about those ties? Did she not care that they had lost Elia? She was just like her dragons. She wanted to see the world burn.

 

“She was so beautiful,” said Quentyn, shifting so he was sitting up. “Of course she would not…”

 

Gerris looked at Quentyn - at the hurt in his deep brown eyes. Frog, they had called him, the Frog Prince because of his looks. But Quentyn was good, better than most anyone else Gerris had ever met.

 

“You know I’ve never…” Quentyn said.

 

“Oh, Quentyn,” said Gerris. “She hardly gave you-”

 

“She only had to look at me,” Quentyn said, voice soft and halting.

 

Gerris looked at him, and remembered when he had fallen off his horse and broke his leg at Yronwood - how Quentyn had been the one to wait with him while Archibald went back to get a cart for him, how cheerful he had been as he distracted Gerris from the pain and the heat of the day.

 

He had never really thought of kissing Quentyn before, but somehow, it seemed as if he had made the decisions years ago - before they had even left for Meereen.

 

So he kissed Quentyn, soft, at first, and then a bit harder. He had kissed girls before, Gerris knew, at least one of the bastard girls that was a bit older than Gwyneth. One of his sisters - but he put that thought swiftly from his head.

 

Quentyn’s lips were chapped, and dry, but it didn’t matter.

 

“But-” Quentyn said, eyes wide and startled.

 

“We are going back to Dorne,” Gerris said. Quentyn could marry Gwyneth and have a child, if they weren’t all burnt to a crisp by those foul monsters. Gerris would marry and continue on his family’s name. They would remain friends.

 

 

* * *

 

“There are more Westerosi afoot,” said Archibald.

 

“Of course there are,” said Gerris, startling. He had fallen asleep next to Quentyn’s bed again, and for a moment, he thought that Archibald knew - but how could he, unless he had been lurking and watching. And so what if he had? One of the Princes of Dorne took male paramours regularly. “Come to court the dragon queen. How disappointed they will be, to hear she has flown off and left nothing of use behind. Or perhaps they would like some flux?”

 

That would be their luck, he thought. Quentyn was healing, and then they would find a way out of the city, only to be claimed by the damn flux.

 

“Who?” Quentyn asked, opening both his eyes now.

 

“I know not, just that Ser Barristan is meeting with them,” said Archibald. He looked at Quentyn, then at Gerris, and then he nodded.

 

“Take a seat, then,” Gerris said. “They’ll bring dinner in short order.” Archibald merely made a grumbling sound and left without a word.

 

Quentyn looked at Gerris, slightly panicked. He did not speak until Archibald was long out of earshot. “Gerris, you need not-”

 

“I would not have done such a thing if I did not wish to,” Gerris said. He resisted the urge to cross his arms - but it was as if he was being interrogated by one of his sisters.

 

Quentyn gave him the softest of smiles, a strange, shy thing that made it feel as though something had blossomed inside of Gerris. “All right,” he said. He shifted and then grimaced, reaching his hand for the burn. Gerris grabbed his wrist. “Oh!”

 

Gerris turned and kissed the soft skin, pleased, though he could not help but be overwhelmed by the smell of the healing salve. “You should not scratch it. Itching is a good sign, it means it is healing.” Or, Gerris hoped that the girl who came to tend to Quentyn’s dressing had not been lying to him on that count.

 

“Yes,” Quentyn said, pouting before closing his eyes again.

 

 

* * *

 

“Tyrion Lannister, the Imp?” Gerris demanded, when Ser Barristan asked to have a word with him and Archibald. “How is he in Meereen?”

 

“How is the Dornish Prince in Meereen?” Ser Barristan asked. He looked old, then, and weary. She was not worth it, Gerris thought, but what else was the knight to do? The Baratheon boy king had sent him away - what else did he have left? “In Westeros, they say that he killed King Joffrey.”

 

Gerris looked at Archibald, who merely shrugged - why was Gerris asking for his opinion on this? Gerris was supposed to be the smart one, now that they had lost Kedry. “So he has fled,” said Gerris. How fitting, for the Dragon Queen to be collecting all of Westeros’ cast-offs.

 

“He claims he killed Lord Tywin Lannister as he left King’s Landing,” said Barristan. “But we have not received news in the city for…” He inhaled, rather than sighed.

 

“And what does this have to do with us?” Gerris asked.

 

“He wishes to speak with you,” said Ser Barristan.

 

“Lannisters,” said Archibald. They were in agreement on this, at least.

 

“He wishes to ally himself with the Mother of Dragons?” Gerris asked, careful not to suggest that she was a Queen in any way - though it would be decidedly easier to take over Westeros without Lord Tywin seeing to its defense. When Barristan did not answer, he waved his hand at him. “He can speak with us, if he like - though I fail to see what use the Prince will be to whatever heady plan he is no doubt concocting.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

Tyrion the Imp gave Gerris a gruesome smile. “If I find a way for you to return to Dorne, will you promise the Dragon Queen your swords?”

 

“Yes,” said Quentyn.

 

“Quentyn!” said Gerris. “After everything-” They held each others eyes for what seemed to be a long moment.

 

“She is coming to take her throne, no matter what we do,” Quentyn said. “Better to be allied with the Mother of Dragons than against them.” He looked to the distance. Gerris could almost feel the heat of the chamber on himself.

 

“I will follow your wisdom, Prince Quentyn,” Archibald said. He looked at Gerris.

 

“You have not even met her,” he said to Tyrion.

 

“Ah, but she does have dragons,” said Tyrion, looking at Quentyn and then at Gerris. He did his best to meet the Imp’s gaze, but he did not think that he was succesful.

 

Gerris swallowed and looked at Quentyn, ignoring Tyrion. “I will follow your wisdom as well.”

 

“I will report back at the success of my efforts,” Tyrion said, and bowed his head. “Prince Quentyn. Ser Gerris. Ser Archibald.”

 

“I do not trust him,” said Gerris, once he had left. He knew too much.

 

“He will not send us on some boat to die,” said Archibald. “We are useless to him then. Better to have us as pawns.”

 

“Yes,” said Quentyn, giving Gerris a long look.

 

“Pawns to deliver him Dorne - and what does Dorne get from it?” Gerris asked.

 

“Not being burnt,” said Quentyn.

 

“Dorne resisted before,” Gerris pointed out.

 

“War won’t come just from dragons,” Quentyn said. “Look at what happened when King Robert died.”

 

Gerris nodded his head. At least Quentyn was being strong-willed about something sensible, rather than charming that damned Dragon Queen.

 

 

* * *

 

He crept into Quentyn’s cabin the first night that they were on the boat and slid into the bed next to him. “Gerris,” Quentyn murmured, and he sounded alarmed. It took Gerris a moment to realize why - he was still healing, he was still not very mobile, and he still looked a bit of a nightmare.

 

“I just came to lay with you,” Gerris said, stroking Quentyn’s back gently until he felt the tension release from it. “There is plenty of time for…”

 

“Oh,” said Quentyn, after a long, quiet moment. “Yes, I suppose there is.”


End file.
